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Tweetmail No. 83: Goalies, Work & Jersey Colors

by
Michael Smith
/ Carolina Hurricanes

Hello and welcome to a weekly feature on CarolinaHurricanes.com in which I take your Twitter questions about the Carolina Hurricanes or other assorted topics and answer them in mailbag form. Hopefully, the final product is insightful to some degree, and maybe we have some fun along the way.

Let’s get to it.

@MSmithCanes Any idea who will be in the net this Friday? Does Cam Ward get a rematch?

Head coach Bill Peters announced Wednesday after practice that Cam Ward would get the start on Friday in Detroit. Beyond that, though, he wouldn’t commit to a starter.

“I don’t think you can pre-plan too far ahead with certain things, and that’s one of them,” Peters said.

With a game the following night in D.C. in a back-to-back situation, I wouldn’t be surprised to see the Canes split the goaltending duties, unless Ward pitches a stellar shutout on Friday and feels fresh enough to get back at it again the next night. This early in the season, though, it might make more sense to play both goaltenders.

@MSmithCanes How hard did Peters skate team today after issues w/work ethic? How did it compare to skate after 2nd preseason game?#Tweetmail

Canes head coach Bill Peters was upfront and honest in Tuesday’s postgame press conference regarding his team’s effort in their 4-1 loss to Florida.

“There’s one thing we have to focus on right now, and that’s work ethic,” he said. “If you’re going to play like that, you’re not going to win a game. It doesn’t matter what the month is. I don’t know why we’d come out and play the way we did. We looked very tentative.”

So, the team worked in practice on Wednesday. There was skating, there was special teams work, there was stern instruction.

“Perfect time for [a working practice]. Two days before we play and coming off a disappointing effort,” Peters said after practice. “We needed to go to work.”

October has been particularly ghoulish to the Canes, who haven’t won a game in the first month of the regular season since Oct. 19, 2013 (0-12-2 since). But Tuesday was just game No. 3 of 82; there’s plenty of time for recalibration and course correction, and it started with getting back to work today.

“We’re realistic in the fact that we know we let each other down. We let each other down last night, and we’ll learn a lot more going on the road,” Peters said. “I don’t think anyone saw it coming, to be honest with you, coming off Saturday’s effort and the way we played in that game. Didn’t have the same jump or intensity on Tuesday.”

I’ve seen this question pop up every now and then, sometimes more generally about jersey colors at practice, so here we go: education time!

Typically, this is what jersey color represents at practice: Black jerseys are defensemen. Red and white sweaters are worn by forwards, with two lines dressing in red and the other two wearing white. Sometimes, extra colors like gray, dark blue and a lovely shade of light blue, will be mixed in to differentiate between four lines.

Lately, the Hurricanes have been running special teams drills in practice, outfitting the power play in red and the penalty kill in white, which results in some sweater changing or double-layering.

Finally, an injured player working his way back into the lineup and designated for no contact will wear yellow. Similar to a quarterback wearing red in a football practice, the yellow sweater stands out and signifies no physical contact.